Week commencing Sunday 22nd May 2022

‘Christ triumphant, ever reigning’ MP 77 (Piano)
Michael Saward

‘Jesus is king and I will extol him’ MP 366 (Piano)

‘The splendour of the King’ MP (Guitar & violin) MP 1227

Chris Tomlin, Jesse Reeves and Ed Cash

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EpxOji1XTvc

Sermon. “The Ascension”

Introduction

Today we are thinking about the Ascension. Acts 1:3 indicates that the Ascension took place 40 days after Christ’s resurrection. So Ascension Day this year is this Thursday 26^th May.

Luke writes as a historian. In his Gospel he wrote about “all that Jesus began to do and teach “until the day he was taken up into heaven.” Luke includes eyewitness accounts of Christ’s resurrection appearances to His disciples over this 40 day period. Indeed the Lord instructed them. They include His final appearance to them. There Jesus commissions His disciples to be His witnesses and then He ascends. The Ascension reads as an eyewitness account: “He was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight” The Ascension is one of a range of miraculous events concerning Christ to which an Apostle must be able to bear witness. The Ascension was a real, physical, historical event.

Christ’s Exaltation

The Ascension primarily speaks of Christ’s Exaltation.

Christ is exalted because He has triumphed in bringing Salvation. Jesus said “I come from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going to the Father” (John 16:28). Jesus had come into our world to save us. He completed this work at the cross. There He redeemed us; giving His life that we could be freely forgiven and brought back into relationship with God. Jesus defeated death- this is clearly seen in the Resurrection. Jesus was victorious. So the Ascension shows us Jesus returning to the Father in triumph and glory.

The fact that Jesus is seated at the right hand of the Father’ speaks of this successful completion of His saving work. The Old Testament predicted that the Messiah would sit at the right hand of God “The Lord says to my Lord: sit at my right hand, ‘till I make all your enemies your footstall.’ (Psalm 110:1. See also Hebrews 3:1). This sitting down is a dramatic indication that Christ has successfully completed His work of redemption. It is rather like you or I sitting down after we have completed some big project to enjoy the satisfaction of accomplishing it. In the same way Jesus sat down at God’s right hand having completed His work.

Christ’s exaltation also speaks of His supremacy. The Apostle Paul states that “God raised him from the dead and made him sit at His right hand in the heavenly places; far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named.’ (Ephesians 1:20, 21). Angels, authorities and powers are subject to Christ (1 Peter 3:22). This supremacy confirms Christ’s unique status and relationship to God. The son of God. When Jesus walked the earth, the disciples caught a glimpse of that glory when Jesus was transfigured. Light, not reflected, but from within radiating out of His body (Mark 9:2-13). As Christians we rightly praise and worship Christ for who He is and all He has done: “Worthy is the lamb, who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise.”

Sitting in prison, broken and defeated, the Emperor Napoleon made an amazing assessment of Christ.

“Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force!

Jesus Christ alone founded His Empire upon love: and at this hour millions of men would die for Him.

I have so inspired multitudes that they would die for me; but, after all, my presence was necessary—the lighting of my eye, my voice, a word from me—then the sacred fire was kindled in their hearts. Now that I am imprisoned at St. Helena, alone, chained upon this rock, who fights and wins empires for me now?

What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal reign of Christ who is proclaimed, loved, adored and whose reign is extending over all the earth“

The supremacy of Christ.

The Ascension primarily speaks of Christ’s exaltation.

Benefits for Christ’s followers

The Ascension also signals certain benefits for Christ’s followers.

The first of these is the gift of the Holy Spirit. This first benefit arising from Jesus return to heaven is found in John 16:7, “It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go the counsellor will not come to you, but if I go I will send him to you.” If Jesus had not gone back to heaven we would not have received the Holy Spirit. The power and ability to live the Christian life comes by the Spirit. If Jesus had not returned and the Spirit had not come, the church would have died out over 2000 years ago.

Bill Bright writes “To be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be filled with Christ. The Holy spirit came to glorify Christ. Therefore if I am filled with the Holy Spirit, I am abiding in Christ…And if I am controlled and empowered by Christ, He will be walking around in my body, living His resurrection life in and through me.”

A second benefit of the Ascension, which follows on from the first, concerns the mission of the church. Acts 1:7 reminds us of Christ’s Great Commission to His disciples. We are to be His witnesses. But the Ascension reminds us we can witness with confidence. Too often I know the opposite is the case. We look at the prospect of mission and witnessing, and we say ‘How can God use me? How can I persuade anyone? People are too resistant to the Gospel. What can I do? But this kind of thinking forgets Christ is ascended. Christ is exalted and Lord of all. He says ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me therefore go and make disciples…’ (Matthew 28:18). So we witness with confidence. Not carrying a burden of what we naturally can or can’t do. Neither burdened with the outcome of our witness, but with an attitude of faith. Faith in the ascended Christ. Christ has all authority therefore He is the one who opens blind eyes. He takes your testimony or spoken truth- even if insignificant or contentious. He takes your compassionate act and impresses such things on the thinking of the person who does not yet believe. By His Spirit He is already at work on the other person before you came on the scene. To witness is about having faith in what the Lord will do. The battle is not yours but the Lords’. Mission may seem overwhelming; like a Goliath! But God will use the person, however unlikely, who has faith in Him, to effect. So commit to the Lord what you know of Him through the Bible, pray and open your mouth when the opportunity comes. And He will use your contribution to greatest effect in bringing Salvation to others. The scale and outcome of which you may never know until you step into eternity:

Edward Kimball was concerned about one of his young Sunday school students who worked at a shoe shop in town. One day Kimball visited him at the shop, he found the student in the back stocking shoes, and led him to Christ then and there. Dwight L Moody eventually left the shoe shop to become one of the greatest preachers and evangelists of all time. Moody, whose international speaking brought him to the UK, preached in a little chapel pastored by a young man by the name of Frederic Brotherton Meyer- F B Meyer. Moody told of how a Sunday School teacher he had known in Chicago personally went to every student in his class and led every one of them to Christ.

That message changed Meyer’s entire ministry, inspiring him to become an evangelist like Moody. Over the years Meyer went to America several times to preach. Once in Northfield, Massachusetts, a confused young preacher sitting in the back row heard Meyer say, “If you are not willing to give up everything for Christ, are you willing to be made more willing?” That remark led J Wilbur Chapman to respond to the call of God on his life.

Chapman went on to become one of the most effective evangelists of his time. A volunteer by the name of Billy Sunday helped set up his crusades and learned how to preach by watching Chapman. Sunday eventually took over Chapman’s ministry, becoming one of the most dynamic evangelists of the 20^th Century. In the great arenas of America, billy Sunday’s preaching turned thousands of people to Christ.

Inspired by a 1924 Billy Sunday crusade in Charlotte, North Carolina, a committee of Christians there dedicated themselves to reaching that city for Christ. The committee invited the evangelist Mordecai Ham to hold a series of evangelistic meetings in 1932. A lanky 16 year old sat in the huge crowd one evening, spellbound by the message of the white haired preacher, who seemed to be challenging and waving his lone finger at him. Night after night the teenager attended and finally went forward to give his life to Christ.

The teenager’s name? Billy Graham- the man who has undoubtedly communicated the gospel of Jesus Christ to more people than any other man in history.

Now, remember how this sequence of events started. A ‘nobody’ named Kimball, concerned for one of his students, visited him at a shoe shop- and in doing that, he changed the world! Millions of people have been affected by his decision to go to that shoe shop and share the gospel with one person. And millions more will continue to feel the impact of it.

So we witness with confidence because our eyes are on the ascended Lord.

A third benefit arising from the Ascension is that Christ our High Priest or representative.

Hebrews 9:24 says “Christ has entered heaven itself now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf.” So Christ is our representative in heaven. Sitting at God’s right hand, Jesus is able to plead our case for us. He is an advocate speaking to the Father in our defence. The devil accuses us, but Jesus is our defender or barrister and He’s on our side. He intercedes for us- that is He looks after our interests and obtains from the Father all we need and more.

The Bible speaks of Christ being our great High Priest. In the Old Testament the High priest was appointed to represent Israel before God. But Christ is superior to any such Priest. They had to continually make sacrifices for their sins. But Christ has offered for all time one sacrifice for sins and that is a completed work (Hebrews 10:12, see Hebrews 5:1-10:18). Christ as High Priest understands our humanity, more than any other. He shares our humanity. He is fully human. He is God and man. He has gone through all that we do and far worse, so He is able to identify with us. He endured temptation and suffering. Gethsemane and the cross show us that. But he emerged sinless.

So when you find it tough going as a Christian- Lonely, abandoned, treated unjustly, money troubles, ridiculed for your faith in Christ. When you suffer, you can come to Christ in prayer, with confidence. He sympathises with our weaknesses. You will not find Him aloof, but you will find grace and mercy to help you in your time of need. Even now Jesus is interceding for us and pleading our case before God.

In Jesus high priestly prayer, recorded in John 17. There we see the aims of His intercession:  that we follow His example that we live by God’s truth in holiness and obedience. And He intercedes for us for unity in our relationships.

Sometimes we ask, why doesn’t Christ, since He is lord of all, absolve me of this difficulty or trial or suffering? Why doesn’t He take this difficult circumstance away? Well we must remember the Lord is able to deliver godly men and women from trials (2 Peter 2:9). He is not limited by circumstances and He will not give us more than we can bear (1 Corinthians 10:13) But usually He does not take away our struggles because it is more important for our soul’s good, that we mature in holiness, obedience, unity and Christlikeness. In these lie true freedom and life.

A man found a cocoon of an emperor moth and took it home so he could watch the moth come out of the cocoon. One day a small opening appeared. The man sat and watched the moth for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. To the man it appeared as if the moth had got as far as it could in breaking out of the cocoon and it was stuck

Out of kindness the man decided to help the moth. He took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon so that the moth could get out. Soon the moth emerged, but it had a swollen body and small shrivelled wings. The man continued to watch the moth, expecting that in time the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would simultaneously contract to its proper size.

Neither happened. In fact, that little moth spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shrivelled wings. It was never able to fly.

The man in his kindness and haste didn’t understand that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the moth to get through the tiny opening was God’s way of forcing fluid from the body into the wings so that the moth would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon.

The Lord will fashion in us what is of eternal and everlasting value.

An Assured Future

Finally the ascension speaks of an assured future.

At the beginning of John 14 Jesus explains that He will be returning to His ‘Father’s house’. The reason He will ascend back to heaven is that He has ‘gone to prepare a place’ for his followers. Since Jesus has ascended and opened the way to the Father, this gives us great assurance we will go there too.

The unbeliever does not think beyond death. The attitude is ‘eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die.’ (1 Corinthians 15:32). Such people pursue happiness and pleasure of this life alone. Money, fame, ambition, lust become all important. And with that the frantic effort to ‘find life’- avoiding Christ- but in so doing ‘losing life’ since the idols they have made of God’s created gifts here cannot bring the life they are looking for. People are ‘lost’ as the Gospel declares, often mastered by the things they pursue. But their greater loss lies beyond death if they remain unrepentant: Jesus Himself taught “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on them (John 3:35)

But for the believer we have Christ promise of eternal life. There is an assured future ‘there is therefore no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). A group of us listened to a spoken word recording of the book of Revelation on Monday. There we heard these words from Revelation Chapter 21 verses 1-6:

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.

A new heaven and earth. Is this only for older people to consider? None of us know when we will die. In the Parable of the Rich Fool the person concerned began to build more for himself materially as though this world was all there was. He said to himself, ‘You have plenty of grain laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry.’ The parable reports “But God said to him, “You fool! This very night your soul will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?” Jesus adds “This is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich towards God.” (Luke 12:13 21).

You do not know the day your soul will be required of you. Neither do we know when Christ will return. But more than these we should live now with this future in view. Even as Christians we must give account for our lives to Christ. On account of His grace our sins will be declared forgiven, but there will be degrees of reward for those who have worked wholeheartedly and been faithful to Christ and His word, in whatever He has called them to do here. (Matthew 5:12, 25: 20-23, Revelation 22:12)

Conclusion

Jesus ascended. He was taken up to heaven and He is highly exalted. He has triumphed in accomplishing our salvation. He is supreme over all.

Knowing that Christ is ascended helps us get a right perspective on life. Because He is ascended He has poured out His Spirit on us to enable us to live for Him. So too, we share in the Great Commission and witness with confidence because all authority belongs to Him.

Since this same Christ is seated at God’s right hand interceding for us, we know He understands us and will give us all we need to get through the tough times.

We know that His control covers our destiny. And if we have put our faith in Him our futures are assured on account of Him.

So worship Him for who He is and all He has done for you. He is ascended. Highly exalted. Live your life now in the good of this truth:

“Since then you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.” (Colossians 3:1, 2)

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Hymn

‘Jesus is Lord- the cry that echoes through creation’ MP 1078 (Piano)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLJFpxOcGKk

Stuart Townend & Keith Getty

Blessing

The Lord bless and watch over you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord look kindly on you and give you peace; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among us and remain with us always. Amen

David Barnes 17/5/22